City Council Opens Investigation into Kushner Companies' Filings

New York City Council members are calling for an investigation into Jared Kushner's family real estate company after housing rights activists found that it may have filed false construction permits.

According to the Housing Rights Initiative, Kushner Companies filed more than 80 work permit applications for 34 buildings with the city Department of Buildings over a four-year period starting in 2012. But the filings failed to list that the work sites included hundreds of rent-regulated apartments, which would have subjected the buildings to regular inspections by city officials and slow down construction. At the same time that Kushner Companies allegedly omitted mention of those units on its permit applications, the company claimed them on forms filed with  the city Department of Finance to claim them for for tax breaks.

City Councilman Ritchie Torres, the chairman of the council's Committee on Oversight and Investigations, was equally upset with the lack of coordination among city departments as with the Kushner Companies.

"It's an embarrassment to the city of New York that we allow ourselves to be misled, even when all the information we need is staring us right in the face," Torres said at a news conference Monday.

Torres said the investigation into Kushner Companies will include recommendations for legislation to streamline communication and information-sharing between city agencies. The Department of Buildings said its Tenant Harassment Task Force is investigating two buildings in Astoria, Queens included in the findings. An agency spokesman said the architect who made the false filings in that case has been sanctioned and referred to law enforcement. At an unrelated press conference, Mayor de Blasio acknowledged that the city needs to be better at cross-checking information, but implied it was the result of policies implemented by the Bloomberg administration.

"We found four years ago when we got here that most government agencies had almost no contact with other agencies, no coordination," de Blasio said. "We tried to break down some of those silos, some of that separation, but we have a lot more to do."

The mayor said if the developer is found guilty of trying to evade regulation, the city will act.

In a statement, the Kushner Companies said the paperwork was outsourced and has been corrected, and that the company "did not intentionally falsify DOB filings in an effort to harass any tenants."